As industry representative bodies, we believe we are best placed to promote our industry sectors and to manage business schemes.
We firmly believe that trade development must be managed nationally and with sector expertise.
Currently there are around 40 members of the Sponsors Alliance. All members are Accredited Trade Organisations (ATO's), who are not-for-profit, national, independent, cross-sectorial and membership based.
Sponsors Alliance members organise and account for around 60% of the TAP programme events and budgets.
The Trade associations and Chambers of Commerce within the Sponsors Alliance represent thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands of employees.
Exhibition Support
We once again have to battle to retain a nationally run and properly funded trade fair scheme; something Labour promised Business on first coming to power in 1997. The Scheme is particularly effective. Not only does it support many companies to establish sales in overseas markets, it also provides Accredited Trade Organisations opportunity to earn from delivering the Scheme to industry, thereby enabling us to engage actively with UKTI in promoting trade. While our European competitors benefit from support far in excess of their British counterparts, we ask, why won't our government give us a level playing field?